The House State Government Committee Tuesday passed House Bill 1970, which bans legislators from serving as a solicitor in a municipality or school district. Though it likely only affects one sitting legislator, its sponsor denied it was a targeted measure.

A renewed bipartisan effort to reform Pennsylvania’s beleaguered and fractured system of municipal pensions got underway Monday with an overview hearing held by the House and Senate Local Government committees.

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, joined by his two predecessors Jim Roddey and Dan Onorato, introduced a report Thursday that they said would be the first step toward passing a state law to allow municipalities to disincorporate and rely on the county for government services.

With 130 municipalities, more than any other county in the state, officials at the press conference said the proposed measure--a recommendation by the report Voluntary Municipal Disincorporation: Creative Solutions for Counties of the Second Class by the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute of Politics--would allow smaller municipalities who struggle to support local services such as police or trash collection, or even elect local officials, to become “an entity of the county.”

A bill introduced with bipartisan support that would give the Commonwealth a greater role in promoting local government efficiencies cleared the House Urban Affairs Committee Tuesday.

House Bill 11 has been introduced by Rep. Seth Grove (R-York) and Rep. Mike Schlossberg (D-Lehigh) and will allow the Commonwealth to instruct local governments on the use of lean management practices to find efficiencies and innovations similar to that currently being sought by Gov. Tom Wolf’s GO-TIME initiative.